Tablora · Library
Reject contradictory sign notation
A value like (-100) carries two negative signs. The normalizer rejects it rather than guess, and leaves the original cell for your review.
Two sign markers in one amount
Accounting exports mark negative amounts in several ways: a leading minus, a trailing minus, parentheses, or a DR suffix. Trouble starts when two of them land on the same value, as in (-100). Read literally, two reversals would make the amount positive, which is almost never what the author meant. More often the value was formatted twice, or the minus was typed by hand into a cell that already displayed parentheses.
The normalizer counts sign markers. Parentheses, a leading plus or minus, a trailing minus, CR and DR each count as one. If a value carries more than one, it is rejected with no number produced. The same applies to -125.00 CR or (125.00 DR).
The check happens before the digits are interpreted, so it does not depend on your separator settings. The same (-100) is held whether you choose a decimal point or a decimal comma. A held value never reaches the converted output, which keeps one doubtful cell from flipping the sign inside a column total without you noticing.
What happens to (-100)
With Decimal separator set to . and Grouping separator set to comma, the source value (-100) is not converted. Converted cells shows 0 for it and Values left for review shows 1. The cell in the preview and in Download (CSV) still reads (-100), so nothing turns into zero and nothing disappears from a later sum.
Resolving the conflict
- Find the value in the original statement, invoice or report, not in an intermediate copy.
- Check the document's own legend or column notes for how negatives are shown.
- If the source shows a single negative amount, rewrite the cell with one marker only, such as -100 or (100).
- If you cannot confirm the meaning, keep the value out of totals and note it for whoever owns the data.
- Press Calculate again and make sure Values left for review has dropped for that cell.
When the table came from a photo or PDF
The Tablora app's XLSX export does its own number reading for columns it treats as numeric, and it does not run this conflict check: each sign marker flips the sign, so (-100) would be written as 100. If you see a value like this in the app, tap the cell, type the amount you confirmed from the page and press Save before you export.
A cell you edit by hand is no longer marked as one to check, so do the comparison first and the edit second.
Original synthetic example
- Source value
- (-100)
- Decimal separator
- .
- Grouping separator
- ,
- Expected outcome
- Rejected until the conflicting signs are clarified.